First weekend of summer

We finally had some great weather around here for the weekend. We made sure to take advantage of it and spent most of the weekend outside. For me, that meant finishing up the railings and re-shingling the roof on the playhouse. However for Kyla, that meant flying a kite, playing with friends, and swimming in her pool. Between you and me, I think she had the better deal. :)

the fumes

I started smelling some burning plastic this evening. After frantically searching the kitchen and making sure the laptop hadn't started melting, we finally found the top of the blender sitting on the heater element in the dishwasher. (we don't usually even use the heater but we needed some clean bottles ASAP).

So the house did not burn down but we definitely need a replacement lid now.

New Bryce pic for Mandy

More fun with blocks

Porsche Picture Update

I took the Porsche in for repair on Monday night. On my way to work Tuesday I just happened to get behind the repair man as he took my car out for a test drive. It was kind of odd to watch him swerve around a little and accelerate and brake to try to get the problem to happen again. The picture in the previous post I managed to snap right before he turned around to head back to the garage.

Car Repairs

It seems like all of our cars are needing repairs right now. We just had the muffler replaced on the Maxima and now it has some funny noises going on under the hood (maybe they have been around for a while and we just couldn't hear them.) :)

The fan belt seems to be going out on SUV, and it is making some awesome noise all the time now.

And finally, I just found out the Boxster needs a new alternator, which retails for around $500 plus 2 1/2 hours of labor to put it in.

I guess I really shouldn't complain though. We haven't had a car payment in years and hopefully this will be it for a while. Just a pain to get it all coming on at once.

Kyla's Birthday Gift

Last weekend we gave Kyla her birthday gift. Since I didn't just want to hand it to her, I first prepared a little treasure hunt for her. She started with a picture of an item, then had to go find the clue that was hidden by that item. You can see her to the left with all of her clues laid out.

At the end of the treasure hunt was a new computer we had built for her. It has all of her favorite shows and movies, plus a plethora of preshool games she can play. She is already doing awesome with the mouse, and I'll work on getting her to use the keyboard soon.

Mystery

So here is a puzzler for you. There are two of my cars in this picture. Stacey is still at home sleeping. Ten points to whoever can tell me how this happened.

Math

Started working on math skills with Kyla tonight. We tried using a workbook but I think we need more fundamentals first. So I created some flash cards with dots so we can practice simple addition to begin.

Kyla's Birthday

Thursday was Kyla's birthday, and we decided to take her to the IX indoor amusement park. It it basically like a big carnival that they setup for a couple weeks each spring.

Kyla enjoying the cars

She really liked the petting zoo they had there.

And a ride on the merry-go-round with mom.

The good thing about snow

Little girls get to go outside and have fun.

Spring is here

April in Cleveland is so nice.

Media PC

So we have had a Media PC for a while. For those not in the know, this is just a computer hooked up to the TV. The PC has all of our movies/tv shows/etc. for quick and easy access.

Up until this weekend, the PC sat in our living room. This means not only did we have a noisy PC that was always running in the room we are in the most but we also had a network cord running up the basement stairs, across the kitchen and through the living room. I have to give credit to Stacey for not yelling at me sooner for having this mess around. :)

This weekend I cut a small hole in the back of the living room wall (behind the entertainment center) and ran a video and audio cord up through the basement wall. This allows up to have the computer on in the basement, but still have it hooked up to the TV up here. We have a wireless remote for this PC as well, which easily goes through the floor.

I forgot to take pictures of the installation behind the entertainment center, but here you can see the end result of the PC downstairs, with the cords running up to the basement ceiling.

Kyla rocking out to her music, as seen through the playground tube. (This pic is a few weeks old, but I forgot to post it before)

More Railings

Kyla and I worked on railings on Sunday. I thought the stair railings would be more difficult, but they went up pretty quickly. Still have a few more finishing touches to go on them, but since it is snowing outside right now I probably won't get to it for a few days.

Front Door

My wonderful Papa came over this Saturday and helped me install the front door to the playhouse. I had built the door last fall, so at least that was out of the way.

Here you can see the bottom door in place (it is a split door).

While we were putting the top door on, we relealized we needed to sand some of the door off, as it was too tight. No problem, I just went and grabbed by belt sander, which ran for about 1 second before deciding to die.

We took the sander apart to try to fix it, but no luck.

So we decided to take a break for a little while.

Thankfully Mom was able to swing by and bring a sander from their house.

And so we got the top part mounted, and with a little shimming, everything lined up correctly.

Park

Kyla and I took our first bicycle trip to the park for this year.

Project Updates

I posted lots of pictures for both the Playhouse and the Monitor Stand (even put a video on of the monitor stand in action).